We’re all guilty of thinking about it sometimes. The classic scenario is the employee who can choose to either get paid for overtime worked or bank his or her overtime to be taken as time off later. It launches the classic argument – what is the value of time? Does it have a monetary value? Is time worth more than money? Every person will answer this question differently based on their personality, their priorities and their attitudes.
This is the first in a series of posts I’m going to entitle You Are What You Eat. In the case of microwave popcorn, you’re both broke and unhealthy. But wait, isn’t microwave popcorn supposed to be the cheap, healthy alternative to traditional snack foods? Well, in fact, popcorn can be a cheap, healthy alternative to traditional snack food – if you buy a bag of popping corn and pop it yourself.
Let’s look at the economics of consumer popcorn first. I went to two of my local grocery stores (one a big chain store, the other an independent store) to survey the prices of microwave popcorn and bags of popping corn, both organic and non-organic varieties. I used the cheaper price of the two stores to compile the table below.
Like What You See? Share the Story!One week down, and I’m pretty happy so far. My goal between now and the end of the summer is to post great content on Mondays and Wednesdays and then spend my Fridays seeing what everyone else in the personal finance and eco community is writing about. Of course, I plan to share those links so you can benefit too! Once I finish school, then hopefully I can ramp up the blog a bit and start posting even more! There are so many great personal finance and lifestyle blogs out there, I don’t even know where to start. Here’s a look at what I’ve been reading this week in the blogosphere.
Happy Weekend Everyone! New posts to come next week – if you’ve read this far, what would you like to see me write about?
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Meet Jill. Jill has a Master’s degree, works an average job and makes $60,000/year. She is loyal to her company, and they reward her with an annual average increase of 3%/year over the course of her 30 year career. Jill is a diligent saver, and every year saves 20% of her gross income. Over the course of 30 years, through financial up and downs, she earns an average 5% annual return. At the end of a 30 year career, Jill has a retirement portfolio valued at $1.14 million dollars.
Meet Sarah. Sarah is a PhD student at a Canadian university. She is funded and receives $20,000/year over the course of her 5 year degree. Because she is essentially making minimum wage and just barely supporting herself, she doesn’t accumulate any significant savings. Continue reading
Like What You See? Share the Story!My plans to start this blog earlier were mildly derailed by a minor life crisis. I’m downplaying it, but it was really rather huge. Last year, in a similar crisis of conscience, I left my well-paying job to go back to school and complete a PhD.
Fast forward 1 year later and two weeks ago, I initiated the process of downgrading my registration from a PhD program to a Master’s program. I actually had planned to quit completely and walk away with nothing, but my supervisor pointed out that that wasn’t necessary as long as I’m willing to stick it out for another 6 months. So that’s what I’ll do. By the end of the summer, I will have another degree and be back on the street.
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